


Colors

by idkimoutofideas



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Getting Together, M/M, but aziraphale is more of an idiot, they're both idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 18:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19257160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idkimoutofideas/pseuds/idkimoutofideas
Summary: It’s widely known that human beings only see color after they’ve met their soulmate. But that’s just for humans, right? After all, angels and demons don’t have soulmates, and it would be dumb if they couldn’t see something humans could, so of course God just lets them see color, right?





	Colors

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a prompt I saw on Tumblr by angels-dining-at-the-ritz

It’s widely known that human beings only see color after they’ve met their soulmate. But that’s just for humans, right? After all, angels and demons don’t have soulmates, and it would be dumb if they couldn’t see something humans could, so of course God just lets them see color, right? 

\--------- 

“Well it’s certainly colorful here” Crowley muttered as they wandered around. It was the year 40 AD, and the two of them had just left a bar and were wandering around the streets of Rome. Aziraphale was still thinking about Petronius’ new restaurant and how much he wanted an oyster, so it took him a moment to process what Crowley had said. 

“You can see color?” 

“Course I can see color. Can’t you?” Crowley looked at him. 

“Well yes, it’s just that, well, humans can only see color after they’ve met their soulmate.” Aziraphale explained haltingly. 

“Yeah well that’s for humans, innit?” Crowley replied. 

“I suppose.” Aziraphale mused. "Can demons have soulmates?” He asked after a long pause. Crowley frowned. 

“I doubt it. I don’t see why we would. Can angels?” 

“I mean I assume so.” Aziraphale thought it over for a moment. “But then again maybe not, angels are technically beings made of love, so it wouldn’t really make sense for them to have a singular soulmate.” 

“Anyways,” Crowley added, “how could you tell?” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“How would you know if you met your soulmate? I mean, God created color when Adam and Eve left Eden, right?” Aziraphale nodded along, not sure what point Crowley was trying to make. “As a way to point out to the humans that, you know, this person is someone you’re meant to spend the rest of your ridiculously short life with. If angels and demons can see color already, how would we tell when we meet our soulmate?” 

“I suppose.” Aziraphale said after a moment. 

“Yeah. And it’s not like She would make it so only angels could see color, we are made from the same stock.” Crowley said, but he didn’t sound certain. 

“I guess it wouldn’t make sense for either angels or demons to be able to have a soulmate.” Aziraphale concluded eventually. As they continued walking they got onto a different subject, and left the conversation of soulmates for another day. 

\---------- 

“Do you think a humans soulmate has ever been an angel?” Aziraphale asked one day. “Or a demon?” He added as an afterthought. It was 1941, and they were sitting in the back of Aziraphale’s bookshop. They had just gotten back after they were almost blown up at that church, and both of them were significantly drunk. 

“What?” Crowley asked, his rambling about ducks and geese* interrupted as he tried to process what the angel had said. 

*Geese and ducks are two creatures that are very similar to each other, but at the same time vastly different, kind of like angels and demons. Geese are, as Crowley puts it, ‘absolute assholes’, while ducks don’t really give a shit one way or another, they just want food. Aziraphale had tried to protest that angels weren’t ‘absolute assholes’, but Crowley wasn’t buying it. 

“Well, angels and demons don’t have soulmates, but humans can sometimes have one person as their soulmate even though that person doesn’t have them as their soulmate, right?” 

“Which is a shitty move on God's part.” Crowley muttered. Aziraphale slapped Crowley half heartedly on his shoulder. 

“Crowley! You can’t just say things like that about the Almighty!” Aziraphael hissed. 

“Why not?” Crowley protested. 

“You- you just can’t!” Aziraphale said. Crowley scoffed but left it. “As I was saying,” Aziraphale continued forcefully, “do you think a human has ever had an angel or a demon as their soulmate?” Crowley pondered this for a while. 

“I dunno. Maybe? But I mean, we’re the only demon and angel that are on Earth most of the time. So if it had happened, statistically we would’ve been the one on the other side.” ** Aziraphale frowned. 

**It had actually happened twice. Oscar Wilde had fallen deeply in love with Aziraphale the moment the two of them met, not that the angel noticed. And Leonardo da Vinci had fallen for Crowley years and years ago, which he and knew used to his advantage, and while Crowley knew the artist was in love with him, he hadn’t realized he had been the humans _soulmate_. 

“I never thought of that.” Aziraphale said quietly. Crowley shrugged. 

“It’s simple math, angel.” Aziraphale had to resist rolling his eyes as the conversation moved on. 

\---------- 

It was two weeks after the not-Apocalypse, or the Apoca-wasn’t as Crowley had started calling it, and Aziraphale had decided to just take a day and go to the National Gallery. He was standing in front of The Japanese Bridge, one of his favorites of Monet’s works, when he felt a presence next to him. Looking over, Aziraphale’s heart skipped a beat when he saw Gabriel standing stiffly next to him, staring at the painting with supreme disinterest. Aziraphale cautiously looked around the rest of the room they were in, searching for other angels that were hiding in wait for Kidnapping Round Two. When he couldn’t spot any, Aziraphale turned back to the painting and watched Gabriel out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the Archangel to make the first move. 

“It was felt that you should be informed of the decision that was made regarding the alleged ‘apocalypse’ and the verdict that was reached concerning your... predicament.” Gabriel said after a long moment. 

“Oh?” Aziraphale waited. 

“Heaven and Hell have both agreed that this was a test from the Almighty, and we all passed.” Heaven and Hell agreed on something? Must really be the end of the world, Aziraphale thought distractedly. 

“So the whole burning me with hellfire thing wasn’t really necessary?” Aziraphale asked cautiously. Gabriel shot him a look that made it very clear he wouldn’t be opposed to trying it again. Two weeks ago Aziraphale’s legs would’ve turned to jelly at a look like that from his superior, but after facing down Satan Himself, Gabriel wasn’t that bad. 

Gabriel continued on as if Aziraphale hadn’t said anything. “We have also reached a decision regarding your actions in connection with the supposed ‘apocalypse’ and how that will affect you.” Aziraphale waited with baited breath. “We obviously can’t just let a traitorous angel have free reign Upstairs, and our initial course of action didn’t exactly work like we wanted it to, so we have decided that you will be banished to Earth for the rest of eternity, to live with these… humans.” Gabriel said the word like it was a piece of dog poop he had to scrape off the sole of his shoe. So Aziraphale was banished, but would that mean...? 

“Am I going to Fall?” Aziraphale asked, his chin held high, waiting for an answer. He had considered the possibility that he would Fall, after everything he did*. As much as he didn’t want to Fall, he did in fact enjoy being an angel, he also knew it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and on some level he was expecting it. He would still be alive, technically, and he would be able to stay with Crowley. A muscle in Gabriel’s face twitched. 

*Disobeying Heavens direct orders, working with a demon for thousands of years, interfering with the Ineffable Plan, even if he wasn’t technically going against it since it was, after all, Ineffable. Aziraphale honestly thought he deserved to Fall, but that’s a topic for another day. 

“That depends on what you do.” Gabriel said eventually. Aziraphale cocked his head to the side. “We have no influence in the decision of which angels Fall or not, that is left to the Almighty.” 

“Oh.” So God was the one who would be deciding Aziraphale’s fate, not that it was ever anything different.  


“If it was up to me, however…” Gabriel trailed off, leaving Aziraphale to fill in the blank. Gabriel glared at him again, but Aziraphale forced himself not to flinch from the Archangels icy stare. Eventually Gabriel broke his gaze and cast his eyes around the art on the walls.  


“I don’t understand why you come to these places.” Gabriel said after a moment of silence passed. “I mean humans, sure, they can see color. But as an angel it’s just, well, boring.” Gabriel shook his head. “Anyways, I have been sent to inform you that you have been cut off from all access to Heaven and…” Gabriel continued, but Aziraphale wasn’t listening. 

“Humans can see color?” Aziraphale said, not intending it as a question even if it came out that way. Gabriel paused in his spiel and looked at him skeptically.  


“Don’t you know that? After living down here with them for 6000 years?” 

“No, I knew that, I just... angels can’t.” Gabriel raised an eyebrow. 

“Why would we need to? We have other senses that work far better.” Gabriel said. 

“Right, of- of course.” Aziraphale said, glancing around his surroundings. 

Gabriel shook his head. “Whatever, you have been sentenced to spend Eternity,” Gabriel dragged the syllables out “on this hunk of rock with no contact to Heaven. So have fun on this bland, boring, depressing planet, living with the humans.” Gabriel’s lip curled into a sneer, and suddenly he was gone, leaving Aziraphale alone with his thoughts in a room that most definitely had color. 

\---------- 

Crowley, to his credit, had figured out that other demons didn’t see color a while ago. Aziraphale was, as usual, just a bit slower than the demon. 

Crowley had made an offhand comment during a meeting with Hastur and Ligur in the 90’s, the 1990’s that is, about how Ligurs chameleon was looking particularly red that night. 

“Red?” He asked, peering closely at Crowley. 

“Yeah, you know, red. Color of the sunset sometimes, color of blood, color of some apples…” Crowley trailed off when neither Hastur nor Ligur seemed to understand. 

“You can see color?” Ligur asked. 

“I thought only humans could see color.” Hastur added, staring suspiciously at the lesser demon. “After they find their, what do they call them, ‘sold-mate’.” 

“Well I can’t- can’t really _see_ color,” Crowley stammered, trying to recover. “I’ve just gotten, you know, pretty good at matching what I see to what, you know, humans call different colors and- and things…” Crowley trailed off, looking between the two other demons. “Anyways” Crowley hurriedly moved their conversation on, and somehow managed to get through the rest of their demonic meeting without being too distracted. Finally when they were done talking about whatever it was they were supposed to be discussing, Crowley all but fled to his Bentley and drove recklessly back to his flat. He was paying attention to the road even less than usual, and had to keep miracling things out of the way of his car as he careened down the road. 

“Music, I need music.” Crowley muttered under his breath. He jabbed a few buttons on his stereo until a song started pouring out of his speakers. 

_Lord, what you're doing to me (yeah yeah)_  
_I have spent all my years in believing you_  
_But I just can't get no relief, Lord!_  
_Somebody (somebody) ooh somebody (somebody)  
_Can anybody find me somebody to love?_ _

____

So other demons didn’t see color. Yet as Crowley stared unseeingly out his windshield, various colors flew by his field of view, too fast for him to really comprehend. 

____

Crowley saw colors. Other demons didn’t. Humans would only see color once they had met their soulmate. But Crowley had been able to see color for as long as he could remember. No, that’s not quite true, is it. 

____

It was so long ago, nearly six thousand years at this point, but there had been no color before Eden. Crowley had just assumed God had created color after booting Adam and Eve out of the garden, but obviously that isn’t what happened, if the other demons didn’t see color. 

____

Maybe God just let him see color since he was on Earth most of the time, mingling with humans, Crowley thought desperately. But that didn’t quite make sense. 

____

Aziraphale saw color too, Crowley remembered suddenly. But did all angels see color? Or was it just Aziraphale? They had discussed it a few times, and what was it that had the angel said? Angels were beings made of love? So maybe angels didn’t need a soulmate, if they were full of love then every creature they met would be their soulmate in a way. That was probably it. 

____

However, that didn’t change the fact that Crowley could, in fact, see color. And he had only started seeing color after Eden, after he met Aziraphale. 

____

Crowley groaned and banged his head on the steering wheel of the Bentley. Why did God do this to him? Make him the only demon to have a soulmate, and then make his soulmate an angel, his enemy, the only other being that had been on Earth as long as Crowley had. Crowley swore under his breath as the Bentley came to a stop outside his flat. 

____

He needed a drink. 

____

This didn’t change anything, Crowley told himself firmly after his fourth glass of wine. Aziraphale was still on the other side, they still had their Arrangement, it just happened that Crowley managed to fall in _lo_ \- nope. Nope nope nope. Crowley stopped that thought right there before it could go any further. He locked that thought in a box, then put that box in another box, which he locked, then shoved it behind a locked door in the back of his mind, to sit next to other things he tried desperately to forget *. 

____

*What kind of things does a demon need to forget? Well, Falling wasn’t particularly pleasant, Crowley actively tried to forget about every part of that experience. There were also things that you see in Hell if you stick around long enough, things that any sane person who sees them would try to forget. Crowley also tried to forget the 14th century. He really hated the 14th century. 

____

\---------- 

____

Aziraphale saw color. 

____

Aziraphale saw color and other angels didn’t. 

____

Aziraphale saw color, other angels didn’t, but Crowley did. 

____

He knew what it meant when humans started seeing color, it meant they had found their soulmate. So he could only assume that it meant the same thing for him. In the back of his bookshop, Aziraphale groaned and put his head in his hands. He had just gotten back from the National Gallery, and had brought out a bottle of wine, but so far he had only poured himself one glass, and left most of it untouched. 

____

Maybe this isn’t what he thought it was. Maybe it was because he was an angel who just happened to really love Earth and all the people on it, maybe God just let him see color. Maybe it wasn’t that a single entity was his soulmate, but that every being was. He had said something of that affect to Crowley before, but deep down Aziraphale knew it wasn’t true. 

____

Aziraphale had a soulmate. And there was only one person in the entire universe that it could be. 

____

But Crowley was the _enemy_ , for Heaven’s sake! They were supposed to be on opposite sides! But... there were no sides anymore. Gabriel had made it very clear he was no longer welcome in Heaven, even if he didn’t immediately Fall, but Aziraphale still didn’t want to Fall. 

____

Then again, there was nothing to make him think that loving Crowley would make him Fall, if it was all left to God anyways. She was the one who made this happen in the first place, Aziraphale thought miserably. And if She would make him Fall just because he loved the demon he was supposed to love… 

____

“You alright angel?” The sudden voice behind him nearly made Aziraphale jump out of his chair, and he turned to see Crowley leaning against the door to his back room, eyeing him over critically. 

____

“Of course I’m alright why wouldn’t I be alright?” Aziraphale said hurriedly. Crowley raised an eyebrow. 

____

“You don’t normally drink alone.” Crowley said, looking at the wine bottle sitting on the table and then back at Aziraphale. “What’s wrong?” He asked, moving into the room so he could sit in the seat adjacent to Aziraphale. As Crowley sprawled in the chair, so close that their knees were almost touching, Aziraphale couldn’t help but notice, not for the first time, how _freely_ Crowley moved, as if he didn't have a care in the world. He had felt some of that when he had inhabited the demons body, but didn’t understand how he moved like that all the time. 

____

Aziraphale didn’t know what to say, how to explain what he was thinking, what he was feeling. “I ran into Gabriel today.” He said eventually. Immediately Crowley’s expression morphed from concern to anger, the lines on his face hardening as he sat up straighter. 

____

“Are you alright? Did he try to take you again? What happened?” Crowley leaned forward, and even though he had his shades on Aziraphale could tell his eyes were searching him for any signs of harm. 

____

“I’m fine, honestly, I just… well I’ve been banished from Heaven.” Aziraphale said. “But that’s not as important-” 

____

“Not important?” Crowley asked, interrupting him as he leaned closer. “Angel, you’ll _Fall_.” Crowley's voice broke a little, and Aziraphale looked at the demon then, really looked. He looked scared behind his sunglasses, and there was a flash of guilt that crossed his expression, as if it would be his fault if Aziraphale Fell. 

____

“Gabriel doesn’t have a say in that. The Almighty is the only one who decides who Falls.” Aziraphale said, Crowley didn’t look assured. 

____

“She’s not known for being merciful.” Crowley said lowly. 

____

“Well, no, but I don’t think She would- I mean if She was going to then why-” Aziraphale sighed and rubbed his temple, he didn’t want to talk about Falling, that wasn’t what he wanted to ask Crowley about. “You can see color, right?” Aziraphale asked, looking up at the demon. Crowley looked momentarily confused at the change of subject. 

____

“I- yeah I can, what does that have to do with-?” 

____

“Do other demons?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley leaned back then, drawing into himself a little. 

____

He could lie, say he didn’t know, but Crowley had promised himself long ago that if this subject ever came up with Aziraphale, Crowley would tell the truth*. “No.” Crowley said eventually. “Not that I know of.” 

____

*As a rule, Crowley tried to lie as much as possible, it’s one of the things that makes life fun. But it’s one thing to lie about small things, like your age or the stock exchange. But it’s a whole other thing to lie about your feelings. And Crowley generally tried to avoid lying to Aziraphale at all. 

____

Aziraphale breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Admittedly, he had been a little worried that all demons saw color, that God would do that just to play games with the universe, as She often did. 

____

“Apparently, other angels don’t either.” Aziraphale said eventually. Crowley’s eyes widened. 

____

“But you do?” He asked, his voice soft. Aziraphale nodded. Crowley leaned in again to look at the angel. He opened his mouth, shut it, and then opened it again like he couldn’t quite figure out what to say. They were both leaning in at this point, staring at each other. 

____

“Angel-” Crowley started, but Aziraphale was already moving, and he leaned in and kissed the demon before he could get a full sentence out. Crowley froze, just for a second, before his arms came up to wrap around Aziraphale, deepening the kiss. For a moment, it was just the two of them in the back of Aziraphale's bookshop, and the rest of the world melted away. 

____

Eventually they broke apart, and just stared at each other. 

____

“Your… you… we…” Crowley stammered, trying to get his brain to work. 

____

“Why don’t we go get lunch?” Aziraphale suggested, a small twinkle in his eyes. 

____

“Lunch, yeah, that’d be- right, yeah, lunch.” Crowley rambled as they got up, the demon trailing the angel out into the street like a lovesick puppy. Aziraphale locked the door to his shop once they were outside, then turned and caught Crowley’s hand in his. Crowley, whose brain was still refusing to work properly, could do nothing but stare at the angel with a mix of shock and awe on his face. His expression was more open than it had been in a long time, and Aziraphale wanted to kiss him again on the spot. Instead, he gave Crowley a small smile, and led them towards the Ritz.

____


End file.
